“Murphy, you have to die of something,” the corgi stated.
“That’s the truth. What is it that Harry says?”
“When the good Lord jerks your chain, you’re going.”
“Someone sure jerked Jorge’s chain. One clean slice.” Mrs. Murphy shuddered.
“Seemed like a nice man. I never smelled fear on him, or drugs. Boy, I can always smell drugs, can’t you?”
“Yeah, they sweat them out, whether prescribed by the doctor or bought on the street. Hard to believe the humans can’t pick up those chemical odors. But you’re right, Jorge smelled clean enough.”
As the two animals talked, the women smoked quietly.
Finally Renata spoke. “All the movies I’ve done, all those murders and killings and blood on the bodies, it’s different when it’s real. I can’t believe I fell apart. I’m sorry. I didn’t help the situation one bit.”
“Renata, a six-foot-eight-inch linebacker would scream, too, if he’d never seen someone with their throat slit.”
“You didn’t.”
“I’m a farm girl. See a lot.”
“Dead bodies? Humans, I mean?”
“A couple.” A big drop fell on Harry’s head. “Thank God, that wind has died down. Kind of brings a chill, though, doesn’t it?”
“Does.” Renata looked out over the darkness. Her eyes were adjusting and she could see movement in the closer barns. “Were you really a postmistress?”
“Was. But I always farmed. What did you do before becoming a movie star?”
Renata shrugged. “The usual—waited on tables. I even delivered messages by bicycle when I lived in New York. That was death-defying.” She smiled. “If the buses and cabs didn’t run you down, the potholes wiped you out.”
“You must have quick reflexes.”
“I do.”
“Most stars have their own production companies. Do you?”
“No. I can’t run a company.”
“You could hire someone to do it.” Harry thought it wise to get away from the murder. She wanted to keep Renata calm.
Renata waved her cigarette in the air and immediately regretted it, for a fat raindrop landed on the end, the sizzle and smoke signaling the demise of that Dunhill. “Dammit.”
Harry said, “Bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried.”
“You’re right about that.” Renata flicked the extinguished fag into a puddle. “Sayonara, my little tranquilizer.” She paused. “Hire someone. Right. Then I just pay his or her salary, and they have to justify it, which means meetings, scripts they think I should read, along with what my agent shoves down my throat. And then I need to rent a decent office, maybe in Twentieth Century City or downtown Wilshire Boulevard. It adds up. Until I think I can really do it right, I’m not wasting my money, and like I said, I don’t think I can do it right.”
“You weren’t born with money, were you?” Harry asked as Mrs. Murphy and Tucker observed Renata stiffen, then quickly relax.
“No.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“What else do you know?” Renata tossed this off lightly, but an edge crept into her voice.
“Nothing.” This wasn’t exactly true, because Harry knew Renata wasn’t a happy woman. She’d thought the rupture of her relationship with her trainer, upon whom she depended to help her improve, would cause unease. She wondered if there wasn’t more to that relationship. But underneath all, Harry felt a sadness. She didn’t know why, but does anybody know why anyone else is unhappy, really?
“I haven’t heard that expression since I was little, ‘Takes one to know one.’ Funny.”
“In Virginia we use a lot of old expressions you don’t hear much. Virginia is a world unto itself.”
“So is Kentucky.”
“Used to be part of Virginia.” Harry couldn’t help this tiny moment of bragging.
“I know.” Renata reached into her thin jacket to fetch another cigarette. “Learned it in school. I wanted to get out of Kentucky so bad when I was a teenager, I would die for it. Nearly did, too—like I said, being a messenger I came close.”
“Did you sing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’?”
Renata laughed. “Did not.” She lit her cigarette, dragged on it, then said, “Thanks, Harry.”
“For what?”
“Taking my mind off this.”
“It was his time.”
“You believe that?”
“I do.”
“But he was murdered.”
“It was still his time. That doesn’t mean we don’t try to find the murderer, that we don’t demand justice, but I still believe in the three fates, spinning and snipping.”
Renata shuddered. “That’s a potent image.”
“The myths are powerful.”
“I wasn’t the best student, but acting teaches you things. I remember the three fates; kinda think the Three Witches in Macbeth are the Renaissance remake.”
“I’m sure you know a lot else.” Harry paused. “Taking the sheriff a long time to get here. There must be trees down and wires across the roads and, for all we know, car crashes. A bad night.”
“Yes.” Renata closed her eyes a moment. “And when he does get here, along with the forensics team and God knows who else in an official capacity no matter how trivial, Queen Esther will be long forgotten. How am I ever going to find my horse?” She stopped abruptly. “You must think I’m awful. A man is dead and I want my horse.”
“It’s natural. There’s nothing you can do for Jorge. After all, she is your horse and extremely valuable. Who would steal her?”
“The only person I can think of is Charly Trackwell, that slimy bastard. But Charly is too smart to do something like that. God, I hate him.”
Harry ignored the personal connection lest Renata let fly another stream of invective. “Charly ever steal other people’s horses?”
“Not that I know of. He confined himself to money.”
“For real?”
“Well, no. He didn’t rob a bank, but he padded his board bills. I know he did, the schmuck. He’d charge me for supplements that weren’t given, tack I didn’t buy. Stuff. Not thousands on one month’s bill. Little bits here and there. Adds up.”
“You confronted him?”
“Did. He denied it, of course, but I put every bill in front of him with an inventory of my tack. I also—and he didn’t know this—had blood drawn so if supplements were in my horses’ systems, I’d know. If he’d given them anything, including glucosamine, stuff like that, you know. Anyway, the tests proved they had some supplements perhaps, but not all that he claimed.” She paused. “Hard to pin that on him.”
“How’d you get blood drawn?”
“Paid off a groom. Charly always has Mexicans in and out. Carlos is different. That’s his right-hand man. Obviously, I did this behind Carlos’s back, too.”
“Ah.” Harry’s sense of Renata’s intelligence, cunning even, was deepening.
“We had a knock-down, drag-out. He swore he didn’t know anything about it. Someone in his stable wasn’t doing the job properly.” She stopped to inhale again. “The kind of bullshit you hear when people try to cover their asses. Enron. Hey, fill in the blank. It’s always the same. But he groveled and we patched it up and he even gave me back what I claimed had been pilfered.”
“That’s good.”
“I thought so. But underneath, I didn’t trust him. I always felt he was trolling for another rich client through me, you know, or a very rich wife.” She waved her right hand, cigarette glowing in front of her face, a gesture indicating something had flown away. “I’m over it.” She wasn’t.
“You think he’ll get even?”
“He already has. He has my horse, or he knows where Queen Esther is.”
“He wouldn’t kill her? You know, like Shergar.” She named the famous racehorse who disappeared in the twentieth century, presumably kidnapped for money. No trace of the horse had ever been found.